Pedants' safe-house

[oldbutgold]

In view of the strong feeling expressed towards inveterate error-spotters (aka passive-aggressive bullies/pedants/twats etc) what about a thread for all the spelling errors/grammatical mistakes seen stricly outside MN in RL?
Like journalist Keith Waterhouse who was president of the AAA - campaigned throughout his career for the Abolition of the Abhorrent Apostrophe.
Spotted by self recently:

Ladie's hairdressers (in town)
Childrens' Society (on BBC)
10 items or less (everywhere)

and I spelt possessive wrong

I'm sure it won't be long edam. My local paper have a bad habit of putting the wrong caption under the pictures. One edition they had "The victims" under a wedding picture and "The Happy couple" under a picture of a couple who were victims of a crime. I am just waiting for them to wrongly identify someone as a criminal by making the same type of mistake.

I remember the dangers of libel by juxtaposition being drummed into us during training. I liked it because you don't often hear the word juxtaposition around.

If you don't have subs working on layouts, only designers, it must be a risk - IME designers don't read the words, they just look at them as fillers of space.

A friend often begins group emails with "Hi guy's". Am I being fussy to get a bad feeling in my stomach whenever I read this?

same as hers, seems to be written as her's so often, and their's
You wouldn't write hi's

No, you aren't.

Have just been reminded of another irritation - people using 'hehehhe' in textspeak. It's a strong ee sound, should be 'hee hee hee'! Or even, at a stretch, heeheehee if you must take out the spaces.

The widespread, incorrect use of I and me annoys me greatly. I find it particularly annoying that, if I use them correctly, people think you are wrong.
For example:

The vicar was talking to my husband and I. WRONG WRONG AND WRONG

If the "husband" element were to be removed from the sentence you wouldn't say "the vicar was talking to I" would you ?

That's like GCSEs instead of correct GCsSE (General Certificates of Secondary Education (more than one certificate). So we should just say GCSE, not GCSEs as the plural is in the C.

BTW - I think we should be kind to each other in the Safe-House (unlike in some other threads). We all make mistakes and we can all learn.
Edam - I too am a former sub-editor and weep for the loss of the old training and standards. A friend of mine, still employed, tells me that now the reporters type copy straight into pre-designed spaces. No subbing, no proof-reading. Awful.

I saw the following gem on the DM

"I had to up-route my son". It formed part of one of the most poorly constructed sentences I have ever had the misfortune to read.

A pet hate of mine is when people use "99.9%" to mean "the vast majority". Getting cross just thinking about it!

Good grief, oldgold!

okay, the apostrophe indicates possession when the s is used as a substitution for the following:

his
her (because in the olden days her never had a place - remember patriarchal society)
its.

except when using the unnamed people:
so the list of possessions when there is no apostrophe goes:

his/her
its
yours
ours
theirs

this is because the 's stands for the contraction his

think "simon his book" contracts to "simon's book"
"the leopard its spots" goes to "the leopard's spots"
"susan her book" goes to "susan's book" (remember the patriarchal his)

but you still make "the childnre their toys" become "the children's toys"
(using the apostrophe after the pluralization of the verb)
"the dogs their dinner" > "the dogs' dinner"
"the dog his dinner" . "the dog's dinner"

i hope that all makes sense - i tried to make it as simple as i could, i know it's such a minefield!

Posted this before, but it's still a gem.

'Guilt-Head Bream' - on blackboard outside fresh fish stall

with the pluralization of abbreviations, the s normally goes at the end - so SILs is correct for Sisters-in-law
and GCSEs is correct for General certificates of education.
it would sound clumsy otherwise, that's why it's done that way.

Recently I have found myself complaining to my mum about signs I have seen around town. Please tell me I am not the only one. I am possibly more irritated by these things today because I am trying to teach my dd.

ooh, companies names:

Waitrose puts 10 items or fewer

Asda puts about 10 items.

i'm sorry, i know that's picking on people who have written in this thread, but it's not about them, it's just using their words as the example!

i once spent hours correcting one of ex's work reports because he'd put "ICI are" (or whatever company) instead if "ICI is".
it was like nails down a blackboard!

yy to yourself when you mean you, and myself when you mean me.
it doesn't sound posher, it sounds wrong, therefore makes you sound even less posh.

there's an advert at the moment for a drink

it says "less glass. less emissions" (or something can't remember what there was less of in the first clause)
i shout at the posters "FEWER emissions!!!!!"

nickelbabe - we don't actually need the 's' because the plural is in the 'C' so although I agree it is common usage, to be pedantic about it, we never need to say it or write it.

I've managed to explain to ds that wacky company names such as 'Toys R Us' with the reversed 'R' are wrong and the result of some very silly person wanting to make their company stand out. He enjoys thinking at age 6 and in Year 2 he knows better than some multi-million pound businesses.

In the Ford advert sometimes shown in the side column of MN it clearly states:

"Discover what Mumnetters' think.
Mumsnet motoring with Ford."

You can see it on the Parenting News email dated 27th May.

I really do try hard with my spelling and grammar, but have no issue with other's mistakes unless it really is a circumstance that accuracy is important, such as above - ffs - how many people at Ford and its advertising agency must have been involved in rhe cration and placement of that? . It is not acceptable.

oldbutgold - i see what you mean, but it is perfectly correct to put the s, and it saves confusion as to whether you are talking about one or more SIL or GCSE...

Gah. Now I'm wondering if that should have been others'.

Actually, have to admit I first heard this said (GCSE) on The Weakest Link - Ann Robinson said it so can't be wrong. She too is old journo.

Nickel, I've given up worrying about singular and plural when it comes to organisations. Even the BBC does it routinely. Everyone seems to say 'the government are' these days. And I suppose you could argue each organisation contains more than one person (except a sole trader).